Setting up Azureus Guide / Tutorial

Introduction:
If you know what torrents are you can skip to part 2.
Azureus is a bit torrent client, which you can use to download torrents.
Torrents are small files which connect you to the people sharing what ever your downloading, this could be software, a game, movie or tv show but please bare in mind it is illegal to download copyright material. I find torrents a great way of downloading a tv episodes of your favorite program that you might have missed or in my case Lost and Prison Break which air several months in America before they do in the UK. These episodes you download have the adverts removed and are usually in hi definition as well which means they will look way better than on your standard tv when watched on your computer or a HDTV. I'm unsure weather its legal or not to download a TV show, you pay your tv licence so there for i don't see anything wrong with it but some people argue it is because if you download a tv show its had the adverts cut out. I don't watch adverts on tv anyway so does it really make a difference? :ninjahide: anyway moving on!​

Where to download
Azureus can be downloaded from http://azureus.sourceforge.net
The Java Runtime Environment for Windows which is needed to use Azureus can be downloaded and installed automatically from http://www.java.com/en/download/windows_automatic.jsp
or it can be manually downloaded from http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp​

Installation
Make sure java is installed and working correctly, then install Azureus!​

Configuring Azureus
Hopefully you have installed Azureus successfully, now load it up. Choose your language then select advanced for User Proficiency, Click next to continue.
The best setting I have found are the following:​

Line speed: Custom
Max Up speed 10KB/s
With these setting I can get download speeds of up to 2000 KB/s (as fast as my internet can download)​

This is the important bit, if a port is not open you will have very slow download speeds!
I recommend that you choose a random port such as 20022 this will allow more incoming connections which means faster downloads! Some isp's limit the speed on port 6881 so its best to avoid using this port if possible.
If you have the internet connected directly in to your pc you shouldn't have any problems with this.
How ever if you are using a router you might need to go to your routers setup page (Usually http://192.168.1.1, http://192.168.0.1 or http://192.168.2.1) and forward a ports to your pc for Azureus to use, i cant show you exactly how to do this as it is different for every router. In linksys Routers it comes under Applications and Gaming, if you look in your routers manual it will tell you.
If you have a modern router such as the Linksys WRT54G that supports upnp this will be done automatically for you, so you wont need to worry about this and your download speeds should be fine. Any router that says xbox live ready on the box supports upnp and should work fine.​

Choose where to save torrents, i leave this on the default settings as you can see on the screenshot on the right​

Now you have Azureus setup and the program should load.
The user interface is similar to Kazaa or Limewire if you have used that before, the file you are downloading appears on the top.
When a file has finished downloading it will go to the bottom half of the screen and you will be seeding this torrent until you tell it to stop, this is done by right clicking on it and you will see the different options of what to do on there.
Seeding means you are helping to keep the torrent alive by uploading to other users, its best to seed a torrent to a 1.0 ratio or more if possible.​

Another good feature in Azureus is that if you are downloading a torrent with lots of files in you might already have some of the files.​

This isn't a problem because you can choose which files to download when you open a torrent.​

If you didn't do this you can double click on the file you are downloading you will see some tabs appear called "General, Details, Pieces and Files" Click on the files tab and if there is more then one file in the torrent you will see them all. Click right mouse button on the file you don't want to download then go to set priority and click do not download.​

That's all, if you need anymore help or think i should add or change something in this tutorial please feel free to contact me on the forums.​

If you have any questions feel free to ask!​

 

Thanks for testing out and reporting back KingzBurnz, I originally created this guide in 2004 when Azureus was the best torrent client to use, I then updated it for the newer versions running on Vista in early 2007.

As you have noticed since then they have forced the Vuze content layer on to anyone who wishes to use Azureus. Vuze is a content distribution system based on Azureus, when in creation it was stated that people who used Azureus would never be forced to install the integrated Vuze stuff, however as you have seen they clearly never kept to their word.

I have attached the 2.5.0.4 version I used in the screenshots above for anyone who still wishes to use it, don’t install any of the updates or you will end up with Vuze.

I wouldn’t recommend Azureus/Vuze at all anymore.

For Windows users I would recommend uTorrent

For Linux/Mac users I would recommend Transmission

uTorrent 2.0 should natively support Linux and OSX, Ive started work on a guide to configure uTorrent which ill post up soon.